[78] Since the start of
the Korean conflict in 1950, the NACA had submitted larger budget
requests for aeronautical research each year, only to have the
requests cut [79] sharply in final appropriations by an economy-minded
Congress. Within the NACA, the rocket subcommittee, aided and abetted
by the NACA rocket group, became convinced the NACA was not doing
enough rocket research. To support this view, a comprehensive review
of the NACA rocket program was conducted at the 26-27 June 1952
meeting of the subcommittee. By this time, theoretical work on
propellant performance, carried out with the aid of computers, was
far ranging and included hydrogen with oxygen and fluorine. In
addition, the relationship of propellants and propulsion systems to
missions was being studied. Experimental work centered around ammonia
and ammonia-hydrazine mixtures as fuels and fluorine as oxidizer,
using small engines. Research with liquid hydrogen was still in
preparation.16

After reviewing the program, the rocket
subcommittee passed a resolution that was to have far-reaching
consequences:

WHEREAS, The rocket propulsion research
effort of the NACA is highly commendable and of good quality,
and

WHEREAS, The NACA rocket propulsion
research activity is at much too low a level to be consistent with
the importance of rocket propulsion to military services,
and

WHEREAS, The rocket propulsion research at
the NACA is, in general, being conducted on equipment which is of
such small scale that the results obtained are only of limited
value to the rocket engine contractors, and

WHEREAS, A function of the NACA is to
serve the rocket propulsion industry as an advanced research
agency,

BE IT RESOLVED, That the Special
Subcommittee on Rocket Engines recommends to the NACA that the
research activity on rocket propulsion be expanded and emphasis
placed on a broader and more advanced approach to the solution of
rocket propulsion problems.17

The subcommittee then listed nine problem
areas that should be added to the NACA program, but none mentioned
hydrogen or other high-energy propellants.*

The rocket subcommittee resolution was
presented to the parent Power Plant Committee by Zucrow; it was
approved and passed to the NACA Executive Committee, which also
approved it. Word passed from Washington to Cleveland to intensify
the planning of rocket facilities.

* They included scaling factors for designing
large-thrust rockets, causes and remedies of combustion oscillations,
composite and multiple-stage missiles (in cooperation with structural
and aerodynamics reseach teams), nitrogen oxides as oxidizers, rocket
propulsion for fighter aircraft, problems of using nitric acid as an
oxidizer, variable-expansion nozzles, and altitude performance of
rockets.